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Kingston upon Thames Council (201914479)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201914479

Kingston upon Thames Council

9 December 2020


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The resident complains about the landlord’s response to her concerns about the fire exit door at the property.

Background and summary of events

  1. On 31 December 2019 the landlord emailed the resident regarding queries she had raised about fire safety at the property. It explained that the Regulatory Reform Order (Fire Safety) 2005 required landlords to undertake Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs) of the common parts of housing blocks. The resident’s block had been assigned a Risk Profile 3 meaning that FRA reviews had been deemed necessary every 3 years. The most recent FRA was in May 2019 and advised that front doors to flats which were not fire rated should be replaced, priority being given to those on the ground floor to protect means of escape. The landlord said that this work was scheduled to be completed in 2020.
  1. On 2 February 2020 the resident emailed the landlord to ask whether the fire escape door at her property was fire rated, or if it going to be replaced as part of the works planned to replace the front doors. The landlord responded on 3 February 2020 saying that the enquiry had been passed on the relevant department. As she had not heard anything further, the resident chased this up on 11 February 2020, asking for an answer to the question.
  2. The landlord responded that same day saying that as noted in the FRA carried out in May 2019, the front entrance door for the property required replacement because it was not certified as being 1/2 hour fire resistant. The resident wrote back the following day saying that she was already aware that the front door was being replaced, her question related to the fire escape door at the top of the stairs that lead to the roof. She wanted to know if this was being replaced, as like the front door it was not fire resistant. The resident’s councillor chased this up on 17 February 2020.
  3. The landlord responded to the councillor on 6 March 2020, apologising for the delay. It said that there were no stairs by the resident’s flat, which was located at one end of the 2nd floor landing. The door that lead to the roof was not protecting the principle means of escape route as it was at the top of the stairs, a floor level above the flat entrance doors. It was therefore not required to be fire resistant, and would have been included in the Fire Risk Assessment if this had been the case. It explained ‘External Fire Exit doors to a secondary means of escape do not have to be Fire Rated and we have no current Fire Risk Assessment requirement to replace the external fire exit doors…’
  4. The resident responded that same day stating that the landlord still had not replied to her question about the fire escape door being replaced. She asked whether or not this was going to happen, as it was not fire resistant. She said ‘You said it doesn’t have to be fire resistant because it isn’t the principal means of escape. If there is a fire preventing me leaving through my front door, then the fire escape door IS my only means of escape.’
  5. As she did not hear back from the landlord the resident contacted this Service, who emailed the landlord on 1 April 2020 asking it to provide a response to the resident. The landlord explained to the Ombudsman that it had not replied to the 6 March 2020 email from the resident as it had already answered her question.
  6. After further contact from the resident, the Ombudsman asked the landlord to provide a response by 17 June 2020. The landlord emailed the resident on 29 May 2020 explaining that the door that lead to the roof was not protecting the principle means of escape route as it was at the top of the stairs, a floor level above the flat entrance doors. It was therefore not required to be fire resisting and was not due to be replaced.
  7. The resident emailed the landlord the following day saying that she had been told that the front door would be replaced in June this year. She said ‘Presumably this won’t be happening in June, so please could you tell me when you think it likely that it will be replaced.’
  8. In addition, the resident said that she wanted to make a stage 1 complaint about the fire escape door. She said the landlord was wrong to say that this door was not protecting the principle means of escape ‘…as if there was a fire downstairs I would have to use the fire escape door upstairs – which would be my only means of escape. I therefore think my fire escape door SHOULD be fire resistant.’
  9. She also emailed the landlord on 1 June 2019 about a number of issues and complaints, and repeated both of the front door and fire door issues in this. 
  10. The landlord provided a stage 1 response on 16 June 2020 (in a letter that also addressed several other complaints), reiterating its previous explanations. On 17 June 2020 the resident emailed the landlord asking for an appointment to replace the fire escape door.
  11. On 24 July 2020 the landlord apologised for not having provided a response due to the staff member the case had been allocated to having left. It said it would provide a response ASAP. Another stage 1 response was then sent on 4 August 2020. In this the landlord recognised that there had been a delay in replacing the resident’s front door, which had been planned for June 2020. It said this work was part of a larger programme to replace numerous flat doors across its housing stock as a managed programme, and had to go through leaseholder consultation.
  12. It again confirmed that the rear escape door did not need to be fire resistant. It provided an in-depth explanation for this and a link to the London Fire Brigade website which gave more details. However, in light of the resident’s concerns and as a precautionary measure the landlord said that it would replace the door with wooden FD30 door blanks to help ease the resident’s concerns.
  13. The resident made a stage 2 complaint about the issue the next day. She said that the link to the Fire Brigade website stated: ‘Property owners are required by law (The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005) to make sure premises reach required standards of fire safety.’ She asked if it had been law since 2005, why had it taken the landlord 15 years to install a fire resistant front door.
  14. Regarding the offered replacement of the fire escape door, she said ‘I have only recently had a new fire escape door installed, and if this “wooden FD30 door blanks” is just a plain bit of wood, I would prefer not to have it, as I have now a proper fire escape door. If however a proper door, similar in design to the fire escape door I have now, is available that is fire resistant, then I am prepared to have that installed.’
  15. On 17 August 2020 the landlord provided a stage 2 response. It explained that the staff member responding to the stage 1 complaint had not been aware that the fire escape door had recently been replaced, hence the offer to renew it. To offer further reassurance and to be absolutely certain of facts the landlord had arranged for a photograph to be taken of the door to verify it was compliant and did not require replacement.
  16. It said that the front door replacement was included on the planned programme for replacement due for completion by 31 March 2021. It said ‘Work to replace doors is programmed over a number of years as part of planned maintenance.’

Policies and procedure

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy sets out that it has a 2 stage complaint process. At stage 1 it aimed to respond to within 15 working days. If a resident was dissatisfied with the stage 1 response, they could request a stage 2 review. The case would be reconsidered and a response provided within 15 working days.

Assessment and findings

  1. The Ombudsman has a very specific role in considering whether the landlord has met its obligations to the resident in line with any relevant policies and procedures and taken reasonable steps to resolve the complaint. This Service does not determine, for example, which doors at the property require replacement. Rather, it is the Ombudsman’s role to decide whether the landlord acted reasonably and fairly when responding to reports of these problems. 
  2. The initial and main focus of the resident’s complaint to the landlord was regarding the fire exit door. The landlord responded to the 2 February 2020 email about this nine days later, which was a reasonable timeframe, however the response failed to address the question that the resident had asked, and instead provided information relating the front door of the property. It then took the landlord three weeks to respond to the resident’s further enquiry. Therefore overall, it took over a month for the resident to obtain a response to her question, which clearly caused her some frustration.
  3. However, the landlord did then provide an explanation as to why the fire escape door did not require replacement. The resident replied to this stating that the landlord still hadn’t answered her question about this, however the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s 6 March 2020 email did provide the information required. The landlord reiterated its explanation again on 29 May 2020.
  4. As the resident disagreed with the explanation the landlord provided, she made a stage 1 complaint about the issue which repeated her reasons for believing that the fire escape door should be replaced. The landlord responded to this on 16 June 2020, again giving the reasons why this was not deemed to be necessary. The Ombudsman finds that the landlord responded in a timely and appropriate manner to this complaint, in line with its complaint policy. However, there seems to have been some confusion at this point as the landlord then provided another stage 1 response, seemingly believing that it had not yet done so.
  5. It would seem that its first stage 1 reply was in response to the resident’s 1 June 2020 email, in which she repeated her concerns about the front and fire escape doors in her 30 May 2020 email. The landlord’s 4 August 2020 second stage 1 response semes to have been in relation to the 30 May 2020 email. It is perhaps understandable that there was some confusion on the part of the landlord given the number of complaints and level of correspondence it had received from the resident. In any case, the resident was not disadvantaged by this and in fact received a more detailed response on 4 August 2020.
  6. This second stage 1 response reiterated the previous explanations but also provided further detail. This was reasonable and demonstrates that the landlord was taking steps to try and reassure the resident that the fire escape door was safe. Further, despite its position that this door did not need to be replaced, it offered to do so anyway to try and resolve the matter for the resident. Again, this shows that the landlord was taking steps to try and address the resident’s concerns, although it seems that by this time the door had already been replaced (the Ombudsman is not aware under what circumstances this occurred).
  7. The resident escalated the complaint to stage 2 with her comments about the fire door already having been replaced, and a new concern that given the regulations the landlord had referred to had been in place since 2005, why it had taken fifteen years for the landlord to do so. The landlord’s response to this was very brief, and in the Ombudsman’s view didn’t provide a reasonably full answer to the resident’s question.
  8. However, while there were some shortcomings in the landlord’s handling of this matter, the Ombudsman does not find failings so serious as to warrant a finding of maladministration. Ultimately, the fire escape door was replaced as the resident requested, even though the landlord had explained that this was not necessary.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.